


Someone who still needs me

by Jessa_yeah



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bakery AU, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, Harry Potter Childhood AU, M/M, Remus Lupin Raises Harry Potter, chosen family, feel good, gen - Freeform, post first wizard war, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa_yeah/pseuds/Jessa_yeah
Summary: Lily and James Potter were family to Remus Lupin. Remus also knew of Lily’s non-existing bond with her sister - of Petunia’s thoughts about everything involving magic. What if after losing everyone he loved, instead of withdrawing he set out to look after the one in his world still alive and not behind bars - someone who might still need his help - tiny Harry?
Relationships: Harry Potter & Remus Lupin & Arabella Figg & Sirius Black, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 110





	Someone who still needs me

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you are all safe and well, my dear readers! I’m one of the deemed ‘essential workers’ and have been working 12+ hour shifts during this pandemic, but luckily things are calming down a little now. Still, things aren’t fun with all the protective measures and restrictions in place, but hey, at least my loved ones and I are ok and I’ve still got income. I finally found some free time today and decided to use it to write something uplifting for you to read during these weird, tough times. I hope this fix-it will make you feel at least a bit better :) Take care!

Remus Lupin feels like he has aged fifty years in a few nights' time. His limbs are stiff; his chest is hurting; everything he cares about in this world has come crashing down around him, leaving him empty and frozen. When after days he can finally manage to drag himself away from his flat, his thoughts have narrowed down to one living soul. One hope on the horizon of his future. One who might still need him. He arrives at the neat Sussex house on a cloudy, rainy November afternoon. Quickly shrinking back into the shadows, Remus watches. Lights are turning on behind windows. Cars drive by. One car stops in front of number 4 and the figure of Vernon Dursley emerges from it. Remus watches as Petunia opens the door, a child in her arms, but it’s not Harry. Fear coils inside his stomach. Where is Harry? Why doesn’t he appear in the door opening?

Remus returns, day after day. He can’t afford it, needs to be looking for a new job already, but that all does not matter anymore now. He watches young Dudley throwing tantrums, being spoiled, photographs of his plump little face on the walls. Small Harry hides. He is screamed at; sometimes. He wears ill-fitting clothes that can’t quite conceal how lost he looks. Remus finds out he still has some heart left to break after all. Arabella Figg finds him crying upon a park bench one day and invites him into her warm house. 

The next weeks, the two of them plot and plan. Remus cancels the rent of his flat. Arabella quietly sells her house and uses the money to buy a small shop in a drab but busy part of muggle London - Remus makes sure to destroy documents and erase memories, all paper trails they leave behind. Taking Harry away from Privet Drive is almost too easy - is there then no one else who cares? They think the boy is safe. He’s with his own family - they will know to treat him right. Right? 

Remus doesn’t use magic to enter the house - it’s easy enough to simply pick the lock while the Dursleys have gone to the mall. He can sense passing some odd magical barrier, but it seems to let him through just fine. Harry luckily still recognizes him, stretching up his tiny arms at him. Remus picks him up, wraps him in a small sleeping bag Arabella has made and straps Harry to his chest. He leaves Petunia and Vernon a polite note on the coffee table, assuring them that Harry is in better hands now, calling the police is really not necessary, in fact it would be Not Advisable At All for their reputation in the neighbourhood. And so, with the Dursleys staying tight-lipped and Arabella Figg covering up, it is years before the Wizarding World realizes a certain survivor is missing. 

Together, Arabella and Remus set up a knick-knack store that sells everything from magazines to sandwiches to dishwasher soap, and it grows quite loved by the neighborhood, even more so because there is often a happy, plump toddler with a mess of black hair crawling around and isn’t he just adorable. 

Harry’s second year, he grows up in what might look like an ordinary family: father, mother, a child and some cats. It is not. Instead it is a younger-than-he-looks-like, gentle, clever uncle who falls ill for a few days every month and a grey-haired, no-nonsense aunt with no magic at all in her veins, who knits thick blankets and who also weaves enchantment with her stories and photographs, who breeds and trades what are in fact part-kneazle cats.

Sometimes, a family is a squib, a werewolf, a tiny hero and some really fluffy pets. They might not have much, but they have each other. 

In this version of the story, Harry grows up loved. He knows about magic, and muggles, and people who are not quite the one or the other. He grows up knowing that magic has its advantages but can’t fix all problems. Magic is a promise, an expectation that can be taken away. Magic can kill. Magic can heal. Magic can deceive.

Arabella convinces Remus to put his aching grief and deep sense of betrayal aside to visit Sirius Black in his Azkaban prison cell - to try to get a few answers, for his own peace of mind if nothing else, like any sensible person should. It does not exactly go well from the beginning. The first few times, Remus can barely bring himself to look at Sirius, let alone to listen to him. Is Sirius even talking, or is he just screaming at him? He can’t even tell over the roar in his ears. However, these visits become a habit. Eventually, a few tentative words are exchanged. They rage at each other, all hurt coming to the surface, then they both become quiet. Pieces off a pain-shaped jigsaw puzzle fall into place. Despite the Dementors, both men breathe a little easier.

Lily and James Potter lived their final years in a war. They both knew very well they could die at any given moment, and who could use post mortem financial assistance the most, so they prepared. A year after Lily and James’ death, Remus receives a letter from the Ministry that James and Lily left an inheritance for him. For Harry’s sake, he accepts it (and because Arabella would have his head if he didn’t). They use the money to move to a nicer part of London and start their own bakery - Arabella has been improving her chocolate cake on rainy mornings when it’s quiet in the shop, and Remus has been baking breads and pies during nights when it is too quiet to sleep. Harry wakes from then on every morning with the scent of fresh croissants drifting into his upstairs sleeping room. 

They also use the money to hire a lawyer, young yet but determined and promising, to put on Sirius’ case. When Amelia Bones discovers that Sirius Black was sent to Azkaban without a trial, she demands a meeting with the Head of Magical Law Enforcement and the Minister both. A few weeks of tense meetings follow in which Amelia Bones stabs at them with both her strong jaw and the sharp paper corners of the penal code. When they have run out of excuses (‘‘it was war, madam, come on, you can’t possibly expect us to follow normal procedures-") they bulge. So it is that the case of Sirius Black is quietly reopened. For the first time, memories are actually watched and wands are actually checked, a reconstruction made of the death scene of thirteen muggles. Sirius is just as silently released from his Azkaban cell, bone cold and shaken but ultimately unharmed. It is years before the Prophet has established enough independence to publish an article on it. 

Another uncle is added to the little family. Sirius is better at charming clients than at the patient hard work that is baking and scouring the counters of sugar and flour, but he eats until his face is nice and round again and basks in front of the warmth of the ovens like a cat (like a shabby black dog) and has a knack for creativity decorating cakes. 

Meanwhile, a price is put upon the head of a certain other animagus. When months of searches end up with no result, the Ministry tries something else. Sometimes, all it takes for change is one person who leads the way. Amelia Bones got offered a job. Better keep one so willing to dig into Ministry business under his own control within these very walls, Bartemius Crouch Sr. must have thought. Amelia Bones discovers which one of her colleagues are like-minded and organizes them. Slowly but steadily, Magical Law Enforcement steers in a different direction; less about post-war revenge and harsh punishment, more about justice and rehabilitation (one of their first successes is the removal of the Dementors at Azkaban).

The Ministry does Peter Pettigrew an offer: they will lessen his punishment if he turns himself in. Peter, lonely, cold, tired of living as a rat and constantly having to fear Aurors and black dogs alike (and maybe with memories of a different life, of warm cozy evenings before the fire in the back of his mind) accepts it. He still gets sentenced to years in Azkaban, of course. This Harry never has to meet the man who betrayed the trust of his dearest friends, who murdered 13 people so he could escape with his own life. 

Little Harry instead walks around the bakery on small wobbly legs, where kind customers smile at him and give him candy. In later years, one of the adults brings him to the local primary school while the other two open up the bakery. This Harry always has an adult to look after him, has decent clothes and plenty to eat, has warmth and simple toys and playmates his own age. He sees a lot of faces, cheerfully chatters with a lot of them, but three faces are always the same. If he has a nightmare filled with green light, or one with looming cold faces that never quite come into focus, he knows he can toddle over to crawl into bed beside aunt Bella, or between uncles Remi and Siri, and be safe.


End file.
